


Shedding Feathers

by thelinksthatconnectus (orphan_account)



Series: Disabilityfest 2015 [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Court of Owls, Disabled Character of Color, Drabble, Flashbacks, Gen, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mute character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4301532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thelinksthatconnectus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Turner, otherwise known as Strix, gets asked a lot of questions. She doubts that many would actually want to know the answers.</p><p>Various Strix drabbles, updated whenever an idea hits me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"You know," she had said, eyes wide even behind her mask, "I can help you make a new costume." Babs had smiled then, showing off the one part of her face that her mask didn't hide.

Perhaps it was good that Mary's own mask covered everything, not even showing her eyes. Her costume itself was by all means modest, covering every inch of her.

A second skin, she thought.

No, that wasn't the exact wording that she would use, not when she could never really take it off.

Mask or not, Mary forced a smile. She shrugged, then turned her eyes towards the ground. Her fingers itched to reach for the piece of paper and pencil in her belt, to explain everything.

Yet there were some things that words could not express, nor actions themselves. The Court of Owls had always been that way - both horrifically real and fantastically unimaginable. Just because she was part of a new team didn't mean that she suddenly had a new life.

It was ironic, in a way. Claiming to leave the Talons and the Court of Owls and yet joining the Birds of Prey. Really, how could Barbara have forgotten that Strix still had claws?

-

"Riddle me this," the man had said, pointing towards the group of women with his golden cane. "What kind of room has no doors and no windows?"

"The one that you're going to be locked in once we get you back in Blackgate," Dinah said, eyes fiery.

In many ways, it had been a routine mission, one of the little scuffles that the group dealt with while Batman was busy. Had Barbara not pled for her to not go so hard on anyone they fought, then perhaps Mary would have had the fight done with in mere minutes. Then again, maybe the time would have been even less. He was skinny after all, and while his cane supposedly hurt if he hit someone with it, he was hardly known for his brawn. The Riddler may have had his brain, but it could only do so much against a knife to his throat.

When he spoke, Mary could see one of the veins throbbing, moving just slow enough that she could calculate just where the best strike, the sharpest and hardest, could go through him. It would only take a few seconds, just enough to make the blood start flowing.

She had done it before, and were it not for Barbara she would have done it again.

The answer, which was roughly given once the team had knocked a few bruises on him, was a mushroom.

"Drugs," Barbara had said with a sneer. "You're a dealer now? Even that's a new low for you, Nygma."

But that couldn't be the answer, could it? Mushrooms weren't really rooms. They didn't hold things or house people, just grew in the ground or ended up on plates. Her mother had loved mushrooms and happily eaten them, even taken her into the woods once when she was young and shown her how to tell the difference between which ones were poisonous and which ones were not.

There were rooms without doors and windows; for a moment, just before the police dragged him off, Mary had almost gone up to him with a piece of paper saying just that. But there were some things that he probably didn't need to know.

And, she reminded herself, it didn't even matter. She didn't use the room, at least not recently. A room without doors and windows, a place crouched on the thirteenth floor that no one wanted to remember, was just a room.

Her room, her nest, tucked away in a little piece of Gotham that most had either forgotten about or never even knew existed in the first place.

And for now, her nest could collect dust. The weapons weren't moving, nor were her paintings of the court or old stone owl statues.

For now, Strix could spread out her wings and fly free.


	2. Under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is completely unrelated to my first chapter and takes place before The Night of Owls. I just really like writing about Strix and wanted to explore more of her character.

"This isn't going to hurt," the person - the smooth, white faced owl - said. "Not at all."

Mary blinked. Already, the world around her was beginning to fade, the colors blurring together and the images before her dimming. The world shook slightly, as if she were seeing it from underwater, the tubes and wires connected to her body seeming to almost dance.

The owl held up another shot, her second of what could have been countless injections. "Just think of it as taking a long nap. By the time you wake up, you'll be even stronger than you were before."

Stronger than a bomb, she thought.

With what little strength she had left, she closed her eyes, perhaps giving into sleep early. Yet her mind swam, and for a moment the world was on fire again. Her mother was screaming, screaming so loud that it had almost seemed like she had wanted the whole world to hear it. Smoke was in the air, in her nose, in her lungs; the world was burning, just like the newspapers said it would.

"War is hell and hell is here." One had said and below it had sat a picture of an explosion. Maybe it was in Hawaii, maybe in Europe or Asia (everything always seemed to be blowing up somewhere). Sometimes by planes with bombs, or with dynamite, or even balloons.

Just a simple balloon, she thought.

She jerked awake, eyes wide and locked on the owl above her.

"This isn't going to hurt." The owl's voice was harsher. With precision and speed, they moved their arm and pressed the needle down into Mary's arm.

The owl had lied (again, just like before when they said that everything would be better) - it did hurt, burned hard, sending a ripple of flames through her body.

But at least this time it only hurt for a moment.


End file.
